HParents, help your teens avoid drinking

By Richard Ellis / Abilene Families Special Contributor

My senior prom was memorable, but not for the reason that you might think. My date and I arrived at the venue to find the typical prom kind of decorations for 1977.

The rock and roll music being played by the band was loud. The food was great and there was plenty of it. All of my friends were there. It was just a few weeks until graduation and this was really the last celebration of what I considered to be a wonderful experience in high school. It was going to be the best night of my life up to that point…..or so I thought.

Things started to head south shortly after I arrived. Every 30 minutes or so my date and her very best friend would go into the bathroom and stay for what seemed like longer than necessary. It seemed strange at the time. I had no idea what was really happening. She had brought a fifth of vodka to the prom. After about two hours, she had finished the entire bottle and was getting progressively emotional, aggressive and out of control.

About 10 p.m. she and her best friend went to the bathroom for one last time and they had one of the girl fights that you’ve heard about. There was scratching, cussing, tearing at each other’s clothes, hair pulling, etc. It culminated with them puking on each other. It wasn’t a pretty picture. I drove my date home. Needless to say, there wasn’t a good night kiss. I got home by 10:30 p.m.

She wasn’t a delinquent. She had never been in trouble before and that’s the typical pattern for most adolescent drinking. It’s not the delinquent adolescent who is going to wind up in TYC who drinks. Most adolescent drinking is done in a social context. It’s what happens late at night, at weekend parties that aren’t well supervised, at proms and graduations.

So what do parents need to know to help their child avoid a problem?

As a parent you must know the warning signs of a teen with an alcohol problem.

• Physical: Fatigue, repeated health complaints, red and glazed eyes, a lasting cough
• Emotional: personality changes, sudden mood changes, irritability, irresponsible behavior, low self esteem, poor judgment and decision making, and general lack of interest.
• Family: starting arguments, breaking rules, withdrawing from family.
• School: decreased interest, negative attitude, drop in grades, many absences, discipline problems
• Social: new friends who are less interested in home and school activities, legal problems or arrests, changes to less conventional styles in dress and music.

Clearly these could be associated with other conditions as well and no one sign tells you what is going on, but taken together could signal a problem.

It is critical that you utilize your power as a parent. Do you assume it’s going to happen? If so, do you think you can do anything about it? How engaged are you? What pressure are you putting on school administrators?

You may not think you have the power to influence your child but you do. Supervise them very well. Adolescents are not mature enough to make good decisions about alcohol even though they may seem very mature at times. Don’t assume that just because they’ve taken a pledge to abstain means that they are doing so. I recently spoke with the parent of a teen who is in a specific group at a local high school. All 10 students in that organization have taken a pledge to not drink. According to this parent, only two of the 10 are abiding by that pledge. Is your child one of the 8?

Clearly state your expectations. Limit their access to substances. Talk about the honest dangers, understanding that knowing those dangers may not motivate them to avoid alcohol.  “Just Say No” usually doesn’t work because teens think they won’t get hurt by it. Talk with them about how drinking keeps them from where they want to be, and how it prevents them from achieving their dreams. Rehearse the strategies that you want them to use when confronted with alcohol BEFORE they have to make a decision. Can they call you without fear of repercussions if they’ve had a drink or two? That kind of contract with them might just save their life.  

Address the factors that contribute most to use of alcohol.

• Start talking with them early. Don’t wait until they are 16 and they are ignoring anything you have to say. Average age of first use of alcohol is 12.
• Help your child cope with stress. Talk with them about the stresses that they feel and teach them ways to cope.
• Help them relieve their boredom. 
• Limit their spending money.
• Know who their friends are and who the parents of those friends are. Communicate with those other adults. Always make sure there is good adult supervision, regardless of the type of group it is.  (I once had a kid in my youth group who smoked pot on a youth canoe trip.)
• Help them develop a personal relationship with God. A study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that adolescents who describe themselves as having a personal relationship with God are only half as likely to become alcoholics or addicts. That’s especially important because the onset of alcoholism usually occurs in adolescence.
• Focus more on prevention of misuse than prevention of initiation of use.

There’s no one strategy that will work for all families. But if we save one kid by using them then it’s worth it. Those of us in Abilene who work with kids need to face the hard truth. We’ve got a problem and we need to address it. I’m not sure where to start. Call me. Maybe we can begin together to make a difference.

Richard Ellis may be reached at 325-232-8312 or richard@mindgameslearning.com.